Posted on 06/06/2015 6:57:30 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Actor Patrick Stewart, who starred in "X-Men" and "Star Trek," says he supports the right of a Christian baker in Northern Ireland who refused to make a cake with a gay marriage slogan on it. The baker was last month convicted of "discrimination," and fined.
Speaking on BBC's "Newsnight" show in a video published Thursday, Stewart showed support for Ashers Baking Company – owned by Colin and Karen McArthur, in Belfast – which was fined last month for refusing to make a cake with "support gay marriage" written on it along with a picture of Bert and Ernie from "Sesame Street" in May 2014.
"It was not because it was a gay couple that they objected — it was not because they were celebrating some kind of marriage or an agreement between them," the 75-year-old actor said. "It was the actual words on the cake that they objected to, because they found the words offensive."
Stewart added: "And I would support their rights to say, 'No, this is personally offensive to my beliefs. I will not do it.' But I feel bad for them that it cost them quid."
Activist Gareth Lee ordered the cake for a private function to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, and the bakery first agreed to bake it for him, according to news.com.au, which says the bakery cancelled the order two days later.
The McArthurs were asked to pay a fine of £500 ($763) to Lee, who says he will donate it to a charity.
Judge Isobel Brownlie said the refusal amounted to "direct discrimination for which there can be no justification."
"My finding is that the defendants cancelled this order as they oppose same-sex marriage for the reason that they regard it as sinful and contrary to their genuinely-held religious beliefs," the judge was quoted as saying. "Same-sex marriage is inextricably linked to sexual relations between same-sex couples, which is a union of persons having a particular sexual orientation. The plaintiff did not share the particular religious and political opinion which confines marriage to heterosexual orientation… The defendants are not a religious organisation. They are conducting a business for profit and, notwithstanding their genuine religious beliefs, there are no exceptions available under the 2006 regulations which apply to this case."
The McArthurs have said they will appeal the judge's decision. "We continue to insist that we have done nothing wrong as we have discriminated against no individual but rather acted according to what the Bible teaches regarding marriage," the family said in a statement earlier.
"As many other people have already noted, Christian beliefs seem to have been trampled over in this judgment and we believe this only has negative effects for our society. Our hope and prayer would be that an appeal will allow us and other Christians to live out their faith."
Same-sex marriage is not legal in Northern Ireland.
The right of businesses to deny services to customers based on their religious beliefs continues to be debated in the United States as well.
Aaron and Melissa Klein in Oregon were forced to close their bakery in the summer of 2013 after declining to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian marriage ceremony. They were fined over $130,000.
The couple said this week the case against them needs to be removed from the bureaucratic governmental agency that oversees discrimination complaints because of possible new evidence of bias. "I think the case should be pulled out of [the Bureau of Labor and Industries] court and put into a civil court because I cannot get due process here," Aaron Klein told The Daily Signal.
The new evidence consists largely of emails, texts, and phone conversations between the two parties, prompting lawyers for the Kleins to file another motion to reopen the case.
Earlier this year, Azucar Bakery of Denver, which is pro-gay, was under investigation by the Civil Rights division of the Department of Regulatory Agencies for possibly discriminating against a customer by refusing to make a cake that would include the phrase, "God hates Gays."
Jeff Johnston, issues analyst with the Colorado Springs-based Christian group Focus on the Family, told The Christian Post earlier that he sided with the pro-gay bakery on the grounds of First Amendment rights. "This is a free speech issue, and we support freedom of speech. It's also a religious or conscience issue — the government should not force people to violate their core beliefs," he said.
He's from northern France. Waaaay up north...(8^D)
the official sequel to Carpenter’s The Thing was a videogame. it continued the story after the closing scene of the movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%28video_game%29
however, if you look carefully at the ending of the movie, some think you can see the answer for yourself. here’s a hint... what does human breath look like in cold weather? ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA4Ozqt7338
other theories here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/267cx8/the_thing_1982_ending_mystery_potentially_solved/
Bravo! I guess I’ll order that Tempest DVD of his for my Shakespeare collection.
Just watched the ending again from your link. It’s hard to see, but Child’s breath is visible near the end before he drinks from the bottle. I think the lighting hides his breath before then.
I do think the bottle that Child’s drank from contained gas. In that moment MacReady knew that Child’s was the Thing, and he let out a quiet chuckle.
The French Taunter scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail should help explain everything....look for the scene where Arthur asks “what are the French doing in England”(answer” mahhhnd yer ownnnn bizzznesssa!”). I;m sure the Picard language conundrum eminates from that episode!
I believe some fan fiction conjectured that the U.K. reconquered Normandy (which it hadn’t controlled any part of since the Hundred Years’ War)
I identify him as Saturday Night Live, Star Trek, and Dune (1984 film adaptation).
Well, the reality is that there is no test for what one is, often bisexual individuals change from having a relationship with the same gender to one with opposite gender, such as was the case with Anthony Perkins or Robert Oscar Lopez. It kind of offends the idea of people being exclusively homosexual or heterosexual.
i agree. it’s just a fan theory (not mine). in the videogame, you find Childs’ frozen body. it was a fun game to play when it came out for the original Xbox (it included an early “trust/mistrust” system which harkened back to the movie), although of course the graphics look dated now. you can follow the “official” story by watching the walkthrough videos on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R62qyeNsIAM
” “Same-sex marriage is inextricably linked to sexual relations between same-sex couples, which is a union of persons having a particular sexual orientation.””
Orientation has nothing to do with marriage there are quite a lot of men and women married to each other holding not attraction or even affection for one anther.
Where does England get crusading morons like this ‘judge’?
The English ‘judge’ further said:
“The plaintiff did not share the particular religious and political opinion which confines marriage to heterosexual orientation…”
Who said we care what our clients believe?
Then the English ‘judge’ said the one true thing:
“The defendants are not a religious organisation. They are conducting a business for profit”
Yes and that business apparently doesn’t offer cakes with words which the owners find offensive written on it. If the buyer wants to add that to the product after market with its their’s that’s fine but its not offered before market that way.
There is nothing wrong with not offering offensive or dis-tasteful service. Indeed I would say that is a vital business practice.
There is no test at all beyond ones word what ideas and thoughts go thou ones head.
The concept therefore that people can be categorized differently than physical evidence would suggest based simply upon what they say or observably do is forever subject to abuse, as well as change.
The human mind after all is built to change and adapt unlike the body which has only limited adaption capabilities by comparison.
There is as there must be a very clear difference between behavior and physical form in humans. Otherwise there could be no presumption of humanity. Just because someone says their gay and will take no advantage of privileged access to the other sex does not mean they should be given such access over anyone else who simply claims they won’t take advantage.
The presumption is they can and the precaution is they shouldn’t be allowed the opportunity they don’t need to be given. If you got man parts you should not be in the lady’s bathroom.
I don’t care what you say you think inside your head. We have no way to prove either your thoughts nor that you won’t change your thoughts even if we could prove such thoughts to be genuine. All we know is that people can change their thoughts as easily as they can lie to us about their thoughts. We know this because we ourselves can do it, and presuming them equal to us in capability they must be able to do it as well.
This ultimately is why any ‘judge’ who makes a claim on the foundation of someone’s supposed thoughts or feelings as opposed to the physical reality is in fact always on unprovable ground.
It cannot be proven or dis-proven that the plaintiff are ‘gay’ nor can it be proven that the defendant was in any way effected by that fact. All that can be proven here is that the defendant doesn’t offer a service the plaintiff wanted on the grounds that it is offensive to them.
Perhaps you should ask Ford to produce a line of cars adored with racist remarks. Would the government condemn ford for failure to offer that product as well? The fact that it took the plaintiff a few days to recognize the offence is of no consequence, as it would no doubt take ford several day before their management realized what was going on as well.
OK, I;’m going on a limb here. So basically Chiles was the alien due to the continuous breath that McReady produced on the final scene?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SppG-I_Dhxw
i find some of the analyses about the film to be very interesting. for example, it never occurred to me that "chess" was used as a metaphor for the game being played between the thing and the humans. as you'll recall, MacReady begins the movie playing a game of chess against a computer, which he loses, so he pours alcohol onto the motherboard. at the end of the film, MacReady offering alcohol to Childs also plays a role. coincidence? maybe.
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